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Archive | December, 2013

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The festive season was a time that Mum planned meticulously and she revelled in being with her family. This Christmas her absence is deeply felt and I would give anything to have her back. I was at university in Liverpool when Dad rang to tell me Mum had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. I didn’t […]

Christmas; so many happy memories, but for me it’s also tinged with sadness. You see my father died and was buried on Christmas Eve and then many years later it was the date that my mum, then in the final stages of vascular dementia, went into a nursing home for the last few months of […]

We desperately need new treatments for Alzheimer’s. While current treatments can help people with symptoms, over 100 years of research hasn’t given us a treatment that can stop this devastating disease. But we are getting closer, with more treatments than ever before in development. Targeting the disease process Understanding the processes in the brain that […]

James Murray-White’s film ‘Keeping Mum’ is a touching account of his mother; starting from the point of her dementia diagnosis, looking at their daily struggles and the strength of their relationship. The film was shown as part of the recent Exploring Dementia Through Film event in Cambridge, where eight filmmakers showcased their short films on dementia, […]

I recommended a book to my daughter, pointing out that it was a real page turner. Her response? ‘Dad, I know how books work!’ Since 1 January this year I have been posting a joke a day on my personal Facebook account. I started this for fun, and to (hopefully) entertain friends. It became a […]

Last night, in a post-G8 interview on the One Show, David Cameron told us to “back a boffin”. Well, that was the gist in any case. The Prime Minster was reflecting on an extraordinary week for dementia that revolved around the G8 Dementia Summit on Wednesday. Cameron said that “the most important thing is to […]

Ending the wait for new treatments A few weeks ago, we were excited to launch a new project to create a dementia Drug Discovery Institute. At this stage, we have invited leading universities in the UK to express their interest in providing a home for our Institute, and I’m pleased that we’ve already had positive […]

To coincide with the G8 Dementia Summit day in London, we have produced three narrated slideshows to provide a background to the important talks happening inside Lancaster House. In the first, we look at the history of dementia and research, from its discovery to where we find ourselves today. In the second, we present some […]

This Christmas won’t be like it used to be because I won’t share it with my darling grandmother. My nanny Alice had Alzheimer’s back in the 1980s and 90s and without her Christmas will never be the same again. I miss her desperately. It’s been nearly 20 years since Nan passed away, but sadly I […]

This week in London marks a pivotal moment in dementia research; it will either be considered a time of historical significance when global interests align under a banner of defeating dementia, or an instance in which a global health crisis was only superficially addressed by the world’s largest economies. The G8 Dementia Summit Heads of […]